Paul H. Durham: Oct 18, 1913-June 22, 2007
Paul H. Durham was born to Darr and Gretta Phillips Durham on Oct 18, 1913 in Portland, Oregon. He died at age 93 on June 22, 2007, in Honolulu
Graduated Franklin High School in Portland in 1932.
He graduated from Linfield College in 1936, majoring in History, English, and minoring in Physical Education while earning10 varsity letters.
He earned his Masters of Education at the University of Oregon in 1941. He additionally gained a major in Physical Education at Lewis and Clark College.
He married Amelia Litzenberger in 1938 in Portland and they divorced in 1979. She died in 2004. On Aug. 14, 1981, he married Katherine 'Kitty' Chang. She died in 1994.
Moving to Portland, he taught and coached at Franklin High School from 1940-1942.
Teaching at Portland’s High School Commerce (now Cleveland), 1942-1946, he then returned to Franklin High for an additional two years. Then, moved to McMinnville in 1948 to join his alma mater, Linfield College, initially as football coach.
From 1948-1968 he taught and coached (football, co-men’s basketball, golf) at Linfield College and in 1949 became its Athletic Director.
Moving to Hawaii in 1968 he became the Athletic Director for the University of Hawaii Manoa (Honolulu) till 1975. He was a faculty member of University of Hawaii in the Health and Physical Education and the College of Education from 1975-1981 when he retired in Honolulu.
He married Kathryn 'Kitty' Chang August 14, 1981.
Honors and offices he held:
President of Linfield Alumni Assn.
President of McMinnville Kiwanis Club
Oregon Sports 'Man of the year' , 1961
NAIA National Football Coach of the year, 1962
President of Northwest Conference Coaches Assn.
President of NAIA Football Coaches Assn., 1963
President of NAIA Coaches Assn. (for all sports), 1964
Member of NAIA National Executive Board
Third Vice-president of NAIA
First Citizen of McMinnville, 1965
Member of Oregon Olympic Games Committee, 1966.
Linfield Alumnus of the year, 1966
Member of the National Alliance Football Rules Committee
Franklin High (Portland, Oregon) Alumnus of the year, 1967
Honolulu Quarterback Club 'Sportsman of the Year', 1970
NAIA Football Coaches National 'Hall of Fame'
Member of Helms Athletic Hall of Fame Los Angeles
Chairman and Director of NAIA National Baseball Tournament
NAIA District II Coach of the year
Member of the American Football Coaches, All-American Selection Committee for
small Colleges
Member of UPI Small College National Rating Board
Oregon Sports Hall of Fame 1989
Linfield Sports Hall of Fame 1998
He was preceded in death by his wife, Kitty ( in 1994); brother Dr. Philip Durham and his sister, Nellie Marr.
Source: Macy & Son Funeral Directors, McMinnville, Oregon
https://www.macyandson.com/obituaries/Paul-H-Durham?obId=1647189#/celebrationWall
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Inducted in 1996 into the University of Hawaii Athletics
Hall of Fame. His bio for that “hall:”
Paul Durham was UH athletics director from 1968-75. He was
instrumental in moving the UH sports program from a club level to the threshold
of Division I competition. During his tenure at the University, football and
baseball moved to all-collegiate schedules. Prior to moving to Hawai‘i, Durham
served as head football coach at Linfield College, where he earned honors as
the 1962 NAIA Coach of the Year and the 1962 Oregon Man of the Year. Durham was
inducted into the Los Angeles Football College Hall of Fame in 1975.
PAUL
DURHAM / 1913-2007
Former UH athletic director
won players’ respect
By Cindy Lui, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
STORY SUMMARY
He was
inducted into the University of Hawaii Sports Circle of Honor, the Linfield
College Athletic Hall of Fame and the Los Angeles Football College Hall of
Fame.
But the
honor that perhaps meant the most to Paul Durham was the annual summer
gathering of his former Linfield football players in McMinnville, Ore.
"That
says a mouthful about the respect his players had for him, that they came back
to see him every year," said former UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida, who
played for Durham at Linfield from 1958 to 1961. "He was a very strict
coach but very understanding. We lost a good man."
Durham,
who served as UH's athletic director from 1968 to 1975, died Friday night at
his Kahala Nui residence. He was 93.
Durham
was unable to attend the Linfield reunions the past few years and had not
planned to attend the one next month. He recently, however, videotaped a
message to his former players that will be shown during the July 10 gathering.
"I
know it will mean a lot to the guys," said Al Wills, the former Kalani
athletic director who played for Durham at Linfield from 1949 to 1952.
FULL STORY »
Tony Ah
Yat so respected Paul Durham that he named his first-born son for his former
college football coach.
"He
truly lived aloha," Ah Yat said yesterday. "All my adult life, he was
like my dad. He always made you feel like you were the greatest.
"I
feel fortunate that I was able to spend a lot of time with him this past week,
saw him Friday. We lost a great, great man."
Durham,
the 13th athletic director at the University of Hawaii (1968-75), died Friday
evening at his Kahala Nui residence. He was 93.
Ah Yat is
part of the still-running island pipeline that has sent dozens of players to
Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore. Durham, remembered as one of the founding
fathers of the Wildcats athletic program, fostered the relationship with Hawaii
as football coach (1948-67) and athletic director (1949-68).
Less than
a year after Durham brought Linfield to play in Honolulu Stadium -- beating the
Rainbows 15-13 in the 1967 season-opener -- he was hired to succeed Robert
Martin as athletic director.
Durham
was 122-51-10 (.694) in his 20 years at Linfield, guiding the Wildcats to six
conference titles and two appearances in the NAIA national championship game.
He was named Oregon Man of the Year in 1961 and NAIA Coach of the Year in 1962.
His 1956 team started a string of consecutive winning seasons that reached 51
last season
Durham
was a star athlete at Linfield in the 1930s and earned 10 letters in football,
basketball and track. He graduated in 1936, then coached at several area high
schools before returning to his alma mater in 1948. The foyer that serves as
the main entryway into the athletics complex was named in his honor in 1989.
Durham
was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 1969, Los Angeles Football College
Hall of Fame in 1975, UH Sports Circle of Honor in 1996, the Linfield Athletics
Hall of Fame in 1998 and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of
Athletics Hall of Fame last year. This February, he was honored by the Honolulu
Quarterback Club for his service to the organization.
Durham
accomplished much in his tenure at UH, helping position the school for the
eventual move from independent to Western Athletic Conference membership. He
hired legendary baseball coach Les Murakami in 1971 and oversaw the "Fab
Five" men's basketball team's rise to national prominence (1970-72).
"He
was a great man and did some great things for us during those years," said
Bob Nash, a Fab Five member who recently was hired as head basketball coach.
"He helped bring us all to Hawaii to play, was always very supportive of
the program. It is truly a loss for Hawaii."
"Even
though I didn't work for him, I got to know him well during my time," said
recently retired Rainbow basketball coach Riley Wallace. "He was someone
who loved UH every second of the day. I enjoyed him coming into the office,
talking story about the past and where we were going."
Al Wills
was on Durham's second team at Linfield in 1949. The former Kalani athletic
director played for the Wildcats for four seasons, then returned after a stint
in the Army as Durham's assistant line coach.
"He
was a father to all of us then and he's been a father to all of us through the
years," Wills said. "All of us kids ... old guys now ... have so much
to thank him for. It seems that he was always a part of my life.
"We
used to play golf every Monday, but one Monday he said, 'Let's go to the
Quarterback Club and listen to (newly hired UH football coach) Fred vonAppen.'
We never played golf on Mondays again."
That was
in 1996. Durham rarely missed a Quarterback Club meeting after that.
Durham is survived by sons Jeff
and Terry of Oregon, daughter Cathy of Illinois, seven grandchildren and seven
greatgrandchildren. Services have tentatively been scheduled for Thursday at
Borthwick Mortuary. Additional services will be held in McMinnville.
His wife, Kitty (Chang) Durham died in 1994.
